Sole for boots and shoes



1936- s. MACDONALD ET AL 2,061,539

' I SOLE FOR BOOTS AND SHOES Filed Jan. 28, 1953 j; ueiitony b iao. ifoivigy Patented Nov. 17, 1936 UNITED STATEE SOLE FOR BOOTS AND SHOES Laurie S. Macdonald and Oscar N. Johnson,

Brockton, Mass, assignors to Thompson Bros.

Shoe 00., Brockton, Massachusetts Mass., a corporation of Application January 28, 1933, Serial No. 654,064

1 Claim.

This invention relates to soles for shoes and has for its object the providing a shoe sole having any selected portion completely flexibilized without impairing its strength or reducing its thickness, while retaining in the other portions of the sole the normal or characteristic stiffness which is inherent in the usual tanned sole leather.

Heretofore when it was desired to impart extra flexibility to the shank or to the forepart of a shoe sole, it has been the practice to score or partly cut through the shank or forepart by a series of transverse cuts or scores across the area between the Welt-attaching channels. That practice, however, has not been satisfactory for various reasons: such cutting weakens the shoe bottom; the cuts or scores cannot be extended through the welt-attaching channels which must be left intact and which themselves act as reenforcing or stiffening ribs preventing the desired flexibility of the forepart. Moreover, such cutting makes the sole flexible only in a longitudinal direction and not appreciably in a transverse direction.

With the aforesaid object in view and the elimination of the faults incident to prior art practice, the invention comprises a shoe sole of tanned sole leather having a selected area or portion which has been fiexibilized by treating or processing that portion with a flexibilizing substance, such as sulfonated oil or equivalent material which, by its penetration of the pores of the leather, imparts a high degree of pliability to the sole leather area so treated, while leaving other portions of the sole with the desired degree of stiffness unimpaired.

In the accompanying drawing we have shown in side elevation an arch supporting type of insole possessing a relatively stiff or approximately rigid shank and heel portion and a completely flexibilized forepart, in order to illustrate the properties of the shoe sole forming the subject matter of this invention.

The embodiment of this invention, as illustrated, comprises an insole having a forepart l of usual form, a shank portion 2 which in this case is provided with an upturned arch-supporting wing or integral flange 3 and on its outer side with a smaller upturned wing or lip 4. The heel portion 5 is of the usual form and is nearly flat, although being slightly concave to conform to the bottom of the heel of the wearer. Being intended for a Goodyear welt shoe, the welt-attaching lips or channels 6 are formed near the peripheral edges of the forepart and shank. This particular sole illustrated is similar to that type of insole disclosed in Davis Patent No. 1,058,561 and in the Richardson and Macdonald Patent No. 1,778,002 and is selected to exemplify the present invention because in that type of corrective shoe it is very desirable that the arch-supporting or shank portion of the insole shall be as firm and unyielding as the natural stiffness of the sole leather will permit, while in many cases it is desirable that the forepart should be extremely pliable throughout.

Whatever the form of the particular sole to be treated may be, whether it be outersole or innersole, it is subjected to a flexibilizing treatment by immersion in a fiexibilizing reagent that portion of the sole alone that it is desired to render pliable. While in most cases it might be the whole forepart, nevertheless it might be applied to only a portion of the forepart, such as the portion along the inner side or along the outer side of the forepart, or to the shank, or even to the heel portion.

The flexibilizing reagent may comp-rise any suitable substance that by penetration into the pores of the leather acts to render the permeated area pliable. Such substances as sulfonated cod oil, or sulfonated castor oil, when allowed to soak into the selected areas for several hours will produce the desired result, but it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the use of any particular substance for the purpose and the degree of flexibility imparted will vary according to the length of the soaking period.

As illustrated in the drawing, the selected area, for example, the forepart as shown in the drawing, when subjected to the flexibilizing treatment by immersion or soaking in a suitable reagent, while retaining its full strength and thickness, is so easily bent that when the tip of the toe and the heel are brought toward each other the flexibilized area l, in spite of the fact that it carries the welt-attaching channels 6, will curl up into the form shown without substantially deflecting the heel and shank portions from their normal plane. The dotted line extension in the drawing indicates the normal unflexed position of the forepart with relation to the heel and shank portions, while the full lines of the forepart indi cate the extreme degree of pliability of the part so treated in comparison with the normally stiff untreated portions of the sole.

A very substantial further advantage resulting from the treatment of an insole in the above described manner is that the flexibilizing reagent, by its penetration of the treated area, is found to prevent the sensation of foot burning in the sensitive forepart of the sole of the foot which is fre- What we claim is:

An innersole for a shoe comprising a forepart, shank and heel portions, the shank being stiffened by upturned lateral wings and the forepart being permanently flexibilized throughout its area 5 through the absorption of sulphonated oil to render it pliable in all directions.

LAURIE S. MACDONALD. OSCAR N. JOHNSON. 

